DESCRIPTION: Before considering why food co-ops matter, lets consider why grocery stores matter. Grocery stores might just be the most influential organizations shaping the future of food and our planet. Imagine the food supply chain as a river. Along multiple points, the river narrows, and at each of those points, a handful of dominant companies determine the flow of goods. These narrows include the agricultural commodity traders, food processors, food manufacturers, and finally, the grocery retailers. But the grocers exercise a unique form of influence. They determine which foods are available to the end consumer. In that way, grocery stores determine everything that happens upstream – the shaping of the entire food supply chain. This makes grocery stores formidable ‘gatekeepers’ – deciding which foods make it to market, and which don’t. Enter the cooperative model, it places consumers into that mightily powerful gatekeeper role – enabling consumers to literally own their grocery store. Co-ops empower consumers to decide the future of their grocery store and the future of food.